The Way: Part 1

The way that can be spoken of
Is not the constant way
The name that can be named
Is not the constant name. (The Way, 1)

The verse begins with “way”, then duplicates itself, substituting “name” for “way”. Because the way precedes the name. The constant way precedes the nameless constant. And yet the “way” is most human, Divine immanence, a God-in-sunnah, a Loving path, Her thought-in-transmission along the neurones of your brain. Why then does the way precede the name? Why would immanence of behaviour precede the nameless? Because of the duplication, the reflection between first assertion and second: an ironic reflection, a primordial polarity that engenders temporal precedence and being, unfolding, the secondary name reflected by the primary, immanence. This is the subversive aspect of the Goddess: she reflects the constant, everywhere, including the transmission from the constant name, by means (precisely) of the ironic doubling, reflection as retroactive temporality/archeology, from first assertion into second.

The nameless, unspoken, unutterable YHWH: from its inscription, we are brought into the opening sign, the the impossibility of its opening’s signification.

This is its character of Divine irony: it is a comedic self negation, with the logical status of impossibility. “This sentence refers to the unreferrable.”

But Divine irony is love, impossible love, a love so immense, fearful, awesome in measurelessness that extends into tangible measure, so as to become polarized, a heaven and earth, a tengri-ummai, a shiva-shakti, a tiferet-shekina, a christ-magdalene:

The nameless was the beginning of heaven and earth;
The named was the mother of the myriad creatures. (The Way, 2)

The nameless name is the beginning: the impossible opening that contains within its impossibility the heaven/male and earth/female. But from this opening, the way solidifies, as a transmission crystallised into signs, whose primordial nature is the womb-sign, the opening crystallised as orbic aperture, that operates in predicative conduit to multiplication, generation, an eden of animal-totem spirits: “the mother of myriad creatures”.

Hence always rid yourself of desires in order to observe its secrets;
But always allow yourself to have desires in order to observe its manifestations.”

There is, strictly speaking, no “yourself” here observing secrets and manifestations. Instead, there is the way, speaking to the way. Transmission, self-describing, Self unfolding. And that immanent daughter of the womb, signs unbounded: her nature is the doubling, the ironic reflection of the transcendent ineffable, doubling doubled, reflection of the first assertion in second. Regard her movement! She says “desire vacuum”, in reflection of her primordial feminine, the mother, breathing in. She says “desire fulfilled”, in reflection of her primordial masculine, the father, breathing out in bounty. But as she is the daughter, she has subverted this sexuality, and resembles her father, in crystallisation, the name of the father, manifested. Her mother a secret goddess, an absent parent.

And within herself, within herself as movement, as conduit, as immanent, pre-emptory (reflective) transmission: these are the inner walls of her orb, the outer exterior of her orb. From the opening into crystallization, there are orbs, there are vacant inner secrets and bounteous outer manifestations.

Two sides of the orb-sign, like a Mobius strip …

These two are the same
But diverge in name as they issue forth.
Being the same they are called mysteries,
Mystery upon mystery —
The gateway of the manifold secrets.

That is to say, the doubling/reflection of the primordial doubling/reflection, the inner and outer of her orb, reflecting the originary way/name routine, the tiferet/shekhina reflecting the bina/chokma: these are the same, identified, inner and outer of thought in transmission, now unified performatively by this final utterance. And by this marriage, whose nature is fractal, doubling upon doubling, mystery upon mystery, the gateway — who is precisely the bride victorious — is fully realised and manfiest.

The bride is manifest through the transmission of the way’s self invocation.